Comfortably Numb
by shipperfey
Summary: … he recognized once again that the Cameron in front of him was nothing like the doctor he’d hired all those years ago. Post Living the Dream. HouseCameron.


**Title: Comfortably Numb**  
**Author: **Alice J. Foster

**Summary:** _… he recognized once again that the Cameron in front of him was nothing like the doctor he'd hired all those years ago._  
**Spoilers:** Living the Dream (4x14)  
**Category/Warnings:** House POV, duckling shenanigans… etc.  
**Pairing/Characters:** House/Cameron, Cameron/Thirteen (sort of)  
**Rating:** R

**Started:** 05/11/2008  
**Finished:** 05/12/2008

**A/N:** Lyrics from Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, in case you live in another planet and don't happen to recognize it.

_hello…_  
_is there anybody in there?_  
_just nod if you can hear me_  
_is there anyone home?_

House needed to be able to recognize everything that was happening around him at any given time—his job depended on it.

It took him just a couple of days to realize that Cameron and Chase were no longer an item. It shouldn't have taken him so long, except he didn't spend nearly as much time with the two doctors as he once did. Cameron still occasionally brought him coffee, usually because of a lost bet, but Chase had made a point to be as scarce as possible.

The break-up, therefore, shouldn't really concern House, or so he told himself until Cameron started coming around a lot more often, as evidenced by her latest visit.

He entered the conference room when he heard her voice, and he tried not to look disappointed by the fact that she wasn't carrying a coffee cup.

"…new patient. Forty-year-old female, presented with abdominal pain and high fever. CBC revealed anemia," Cameron was saying, and damn if she wasn't reaching for the black marker.

Some days, she was like a pale ghost of her old self. And she really should know better than to touch his marker, House felt like pointing out. "Giving us yet a new case, Dr. Cameron? Perhaps you don't remember, but I get fussy when I have more than one case a week to worry about… and if I'm not mistaken, this is the third case you brought to our attention in the past ten days." Not that he wasn't intrigued, but he wasn't about to let her know that.

He walked towards the board, taking the marker from her hand and throwing it at Taub. Then he motioned his head towards his office, satisfied when she followed him in.

"I've told you before, if you want to come back, say the word," he said when they reached his desk.

"I don't want to come back," she insisted again. "The ER has no time or budget to run the necessary tests to diagnose some patients, and I'm not comfortable just treating their symptoms and sending them home," she explained.

"So don't send them home… Admit them, and pass the case forward to the appropriate department."

"The head of Gastroenterology is Jenkins," she pointed out.

House winced—no one in the entire hospital wondered why that guy had specialized in intestines.

"I don't think this is a simple intestinal infection; I think it's Crohn's, as well as another immune disease that's aggravating her pain and causing continuous flares, but I can't diagnose it downstairs… and if I can't diagnose it, neither Immunology nor Rheumatology will take him," Cameron added. "Take the case for five hours, you'll have a diagnosis and then she'll be off your plate."

House squinted slightly, going into negotiation mode. "You take one duckling, and you bring them back in five hours," he stipulated. "And you fill out all of the paperwork. You still know how to forge my signature, right?"

"Fine," she agreed. "I'll take Thirteen."

_come on now,_  
_I hear you're feeling down_  
_well I can ease your pain_  
_get you on your feet again_

House noticed how Cameron started gaining her old weight back. He noticed how she began smiling more often. Months passed, and she seemed like she was happy—happier than he'd ever seen her.

The cases kept coming in, and she kept making deals with him—he should've noticed sooner something was up, but he'd been too busy letting his ego being continuously inflated by her regular visits to recognize the truth.

Cameron was in love.

And this time, it wasn't with him.

He stood in the darkness of his office one evening, blinds closed and drumming imaginary notes on his desk, waiting for the Vicodin to kick in so he could ride his bike home.

The voices startled him; girly giggles that were foreign to him. He moved the blinds to the conference room slightly apart with his cane, watching as Thirteen and Cameron shared a moment.

Realization hit him like a bus, and he felt himself harden at the images that popped into his mind.

All the teasing, all the joking he'd done—he never actually expected Cameron would follow through with any of it.

Cameron reached for Thirteen's arm, squeezing so lightly he could hardly see the impressions left on the perfectly smooth skin of his current fellow. A look was shared between the two, and he watched as Thirteen smiled and reached for her purse. Ever so mindful, Cameron made sure to turn off the lights and close the glass doors to the room behind them.

House poked his head out of his office, just in time to see their hands brushing against one another as they entered the elevator.

Riding his bike with a hard-on was going to be a bitch.

_relax_  
_I need some information first_  
_just the basic facts_  
_can you show me where it hurts?_

"You're a fast pouncer," he accused as Thirteen began one of many tethers she was going to have run to try to diagnose their latest patient.

He might've pointed out a lot of unlikely diseases for her to test the patient for. It gave him time to grill her for some goods.

In his defense, he'd waited several days before approaching either of them.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Thirteen played coy, eyes glued to the microscope in front of her.

"I'm talking about Cameron," he explained, twirling his cane expertly.

Thirteen sat up straight, but still didn't look back at him.

"Impressed? Or jealous?" she asked before she returned her attention back to the tests.

"I would say surprised, but then again I've seen Chase, and you're just as pretty but without the annoying accent and questionable morals. You're a step up, really," he commended.

"You should tell Allison that," Thirteen suggested.

"Maybe I will, later," he said with a smirk. He'd always admired Thirteen's boldness. "Is she good in bed?" he pushed.

"From what I've heard, you should know the answer to that."

House raised one eyebrow. "Even if you had in fact heard something to that effect, I didn't ask how Cameron is in bed with me, I asked how she's in bed with you."

Thirteen actually laughed. "That's none of your business, House."

"It never is, but it hasn't stopped me before," he pointed out.

"She's great. Fantastic."

"I'm not asking for adjectives, _Número Trece. _Give me details—is she top, bottom, both? Toys or old-fashioned?"

"You're an ass."

"Yes, but more than that, I'm a curious ass."

Thirteen finally turned to stare at him. "Give me the real diagnosis, and I'll give you the answers you want."

"What makes you think I know the real diagnosis?"

"Because you're having me run dozens of tethers because you want to ask me questions about your former employee; you must know what the patient has already, or you would be letting me do these tests in peace," Thirteen speculated.

_Damn it_, House groaned internally. Apparently Cameron had been sharing more than Thirteen's bed—she was giving his secrets away. He should leave while he still had cards in his sleeves. "Give a diagnostician a diagnosis, and she'll cure one patient. Teach a diagnostician the art of elimination by testing, and she'll cure… ten patients maybe," he shrugged, retrieving his cane and exiting the laboratory.

_there is no pain, you are receding_  
_a distant ships' smoke on the horizon_

The glamour of relieving himself to the library of fantasies in his mind involving Cameron and Thirteen wore out pretty quickly.

He should've left them alone after that, of course, but as he approached Cameron in the cafeteria, he remembered how his curiosity was both a gift and a curse.

"I don't have any cash on me," she said when she saw him limping her way.

He shrugged as he plopped into a booth across from her. "Don't need your money," he explained as he reached for her vegetable juice, drinking half of it in two gulps.

"What do you want, House?" she asked resignedly.

"Your old boss can't just come over to check up on you?" he feigned hurt.

She rolled her eyes.

"Not gonna eat this, are you?" he asked as he took the untouched half of her sandwich.

"Apparently not," she replied, holding up a napkin. "Open it up, it's got pickles in there."

House frowned and did as she asked, thanking the mischievous gods of reubens that he hadn't bitten into that sandwich. When she was done with the pickle removal procedure, he commenced the eating. "How are you?" he asked with a full mouth.

Cameron shrugged. "Fine."

"Life down at the ER?"

"Busy."

He was only getting one-word responses from her, so he was going to have prod deeper. "How come you haven't dyed your hair back?"

Cameron put her sandwich down on her plate and smirked. "Why would I do that?"

"I figured post-Chase you would want your natural hair color back," he pointed out.

"I never dyed my hair because of Chase," she said, voice full of mirth. "And why this obsession with my haircolor?"

House shrugged. "Just some healthy curiosity," he lied. "Why did you guys break up?"

Cameron stared at him, unfazed. "Why did you and Stacy break up?"

"Hey, I see what you're doing, asking me the same question I asked you," he said in an unnatural tone. Voice back to normal, he asked again, "No, seriously, why did you break up?"

"Incompatibility," she replied before chewing on the last piece of her sandwich.

"Because he has a penis?" House speculated.

Cameron choked on her food, reaching for her juice—unfortunately it was empty because House had drunk it. "What are you talking about, House?"

"Just wondering if you dumped him because you switched teams, or if you're still on the fence," he elaborated.

She reached over the table and pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.

"I'm not sick," he added. "I'm talking about you and my current fellow."

Cameron frowned. "Kutner? He asked me out, but I turned him down," she explained.

"Not him," House groaned.

"Taub is _married_," she pointed out.

"Thirteen—I meant Thirteen," House finally added.

"Back to fantasizing about me and Thirteen again, House? How juvenile of you," she teased, eating the pickles on the napkin that she'd removed from his sandwich. "It's not going to happen, so you better not cancel your subscription to Skinemax."

House frowned, carefully observing her features. She could be playing stupid to throw him off the trail, but he _knew_ Cameron. She'd gone to college in the nineties—he could buy her being bi-sexual, but he couldn't buy that she'd become such a good liar overnight.

_you are only coming through in waves_  
_your lips move but I can't heard what you're sayin'_

"You lied to me," he accused when he found Thirteen in the clinic.

"Do you always have to start conversations with accusations?" she asked.

"Don't deflect. You lied to me."

"No, I didn't," she disagreed, slamming the chart she was holding dangerously close to his hand, where it stood on top of the nurses' station.

She walked away, and he followed her, all the way to the elevator. He managed to limp in time to stop the door from closing, and he jumped in with her. "You said you were sleeping with Cameron," he pointed out.

"No, _you_ said I was sleeping with Cameron. I just didn't do anything to make you believe otherwise," she corrected him.

"Why the touches, the hand brushing, the inside jokes?" he demanded to know.

"We're _friends_," Thirteen explained. "I helped her out with the cases she was bringing us, and we started talking… she'd broken up with Chase, and I was still adjusting to--," Thirteen broke off, glaring at him.

"Adjusting to working for a narcissistic asshole?" he filled in the blank.

She nodded. "Pretty much."

"So she told you I'm really a sweet guy under this gruff exterior? That I like kittens and dolphins and how I'm misunderstood by the big bad world?"

Thirteen laughed, shaking her head as she exited the elevator. He followed her to his office, amused that she was still laughing.

"What's so funny?" he asked as he popped two vicodins.

"How can you be so brilliant and so dense at the same time?"

"Practice," he quipped.

"Foreman told me how naïve she used to be. She worked under you for over three years… you can't possibly think she's still that same girl—if you do, then maybe her naïveté rubbed off on you more than you're willing to admit."

House wasn't a big fan of being on this end of the conversation. "You think she's a badass doctor now? Slapping band-aids on kids' arms and removing gerbils from--…"

"You _are _dense," Thirteen cut him off. "She's tripled your patient load under your nose… Cuddy's on cloud nine because she's been copied on every experimental procedure our department has done for the past three months. Your charting is up to date, and the pile of mail that was towering above medical tomes in your office has magically disappeared. Taub, Kutner and I actually enjoy working here now because we have time to play games _and_ save lives."

"You're telling me she's been running _my _department?"

Thirteen smiled. "Yes."

"And her position at the ER?"

"She can multitask," Thirteen pointed out, picking up his oversized tennis ball. She threw it in the air and caught it, time and time again.

"Apparently," House concluded, feeling dizzy and high. "Are you in love with her?"

Thirteen laughed again. "Just because I like guys and girls doesn't mean I'm going to fall in love with everyone I befriend."

"Nice way to _not_ answer the question," he accused.

"I'm going home, House… have a nice weekend," Thirteen said, throwing him back his ball.

_when I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse,_  
_out of the corner of my eye_  
_I turned to look but it was gone_  
_I cannot put my finger on it now_

House tapped three more times on the wooden door with his cane.

This time, he heard her voice telling him to wait.

He shifted his weight as much as he could with a bad leg, waiting for Cameron to finish whatever she was doing inside her apartment. "Finally," he grunted when he heard the sound of a lock turning.

"House?" Cameron asked in surprise.

As she opened the door, he took in the wet hair, towel around her neck, and white Northwest t-shirt that reached the middle of her thighs—he couldn't see any evidence of shorts under it.

"I was in the shower, come in," she said uncomfortably as she let him in.

"Guess I'm ten minutes too late," he quipped.

She didn't reply as she began towel-drying her hair.

"You've been running my department behind my back," he stated, hanging his cane on the back of her kitchen chair.

"You're welcome," she replied flatly. "Want something to drink?"

He briefly considered his options. "Why?"

She smirked. "Because I thought since it's Friday night, you might want to enjoy some type of alcoholic beverage."

"Not the drink," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Why run my department?"

"Someone has to. You don't want to, Foreman sucks at it."

"It's not your concern anymore," he pointed out.

"Actually, it is," she retorted. "Cuddy put me on the payroll as a part-time consultant four months ago."

"She _knows_?"

Cameron nodded. "Yes, she does."

"Was this her idea?" House inquired further.

"She suggested it right after the hospital accreditation debacle, but I turned it down then... I knew you would abuse it when you found out, so I--…"

He cut her off. "You manipulated me."

"Yes," she replied. "Don't tell me you are hurt—not you of all people."

"I offered you a position, you could've taken it," he pointed out.

"Yeah, I could've taken it, and it would've been on your terms, not mine," Cameron explained, throwing the towel on the couch. "I like my job, I didn't want to completely give it up. I think the number of cases that have come to you from the ER show that it's valuable for your department to have a consultant down there, someone able to accurately and expertly screen patients that need to be diagnosed."

"Did you give that speech to the board of directors?" he asked sarcastically.

"Not yet, saving it for my six-month evaluation," she replied with a smile.

"So everyone knew?" he asked, the feeling of annoyance being replaced by self-flagellation.

"Except for you and Foreman… Cuddy didn't want to bruise his ego."

House raised an eyebrow. "And my ego?"

Cameron smirked at him. "Collateral damage."

He was starting to wish he'd accepted that drink right about now. Thirteen had been right—she'd changed.

"If you want me to leave, I'll tell Cuddy Monday morning."

"And ruin your little plan?" House quipped. "Can't have that…"

"So… you want me to stay," she asked, looking more naked than she had in a very long time.

"Yeah, I want you to stay," he confirmed. "As long as I get to tell Foreman."

"Deal," she replied quickly.

"You want to admit you missed me?"

"Nope," she replied with a shrug that made her t-shirt ride up, and he came dangerously close to finding out if she was in fact wearing anything under it. "Do you have any idea why there's a rumor going around the hospital that I'm a lesbian?"

House smacked his lips. "I can't say I do," he lied.

"Did you ask Thirteen if she was sleeping with me?"

"Not so much asked, as accused," he winced.

"House!" Cameron's hands moved to her hips, and he became pretty sure she was going commando right now.

"Blame it on your society's current spotlight on girl-on-girl action," he offered.

"I'm not sleeping with her," Cameron pointed out.

"I figured that out during lunch today," he explained.

"So that's what that was about," she deduced.

"That and a free reuben."

"You meddle with my life, and you steal my food," she sighed, but he could hear the humor behind it.

"Well, you're the one who tried to steal my department," he reminded her.

"I didn't try to steal it!"

"Let's go get a drink," he asked out of the blue.

Cameron's eyes met his and held on for a moment that stretched too long. "I'll go get dressed," she finally said.

House tried to think of something to say to keep her from putting on clothes, but he realized it wouldn't be practical to go to a bar in her university t-shirt and nothing else, no matter how fuckable she looked in it. So instead he just hummed a soft melody to himself as he waited, alone in Cameron's living room.

_the child is grown, the dream is gone_  
_I have become comfortably numb_

Cameron's crappy mattress kept House up all night; his leg was throbbing, but he didn't want to wake her up by reaching for his pill bottle.

He moved to spoon her naked back, hoping that her body would act like a hot water bottle and take away some of his pain.

She snored softly into her pillow, and he recognized once again that the Cameron in front of him was nothing like the doctor he'd hired all those years ago. And he kind of liked the new version.

House wondered if things were going to be awkward at work on Monday, after he slept with his—subordinate? Boss? Cuddy's minion twice removed? He wasn't sure what the hell she was now, but he was pretty sure no one was going to care if he was sleeping with her now.

_Except maybe Thirteen._

**_the end_******


End file.
